A Pop-Culture Podcast

Let’s Talk About The First Black Panther Teaser Trailer!

Guys. I don’t want to alarm any of you, but I’m pretty excited about this movie. And not just to see Bilbo and Golem talking to each other. I’m actually most excited because I don’t really know much about the Black Panther mythos. I know the basics: King of a hidden African country that is way more technologically advanced than they let on, the Panther is a mantle passed down generationally, Wakanda is the only place to acquire Vibranium (the metal Captain America’s shield is made from), T’Challa is a disputed king as far as some are concerned, and he married Storm from the X-Men for a while (I’m pretty positive this will not be in the movie…. ever). But other than that, I don’t really know anything about the characters and their motivations, which is actually super refreshing. My one fear though is I didn’t know a ton about Doctor Strange besides the superficial and was hoping his movie would dive more into the character and it didn’t really.

Without much more to go on I think it’s time. So Let’s Talk About The First Black Panther Teaser Trailer:

Klaw (née Klaue) asks Ross what he knows about Wakanda. Ross responds with what Wakanda wants you to know. A third world country, textiles, shepherds, cool outfits. Klaw lets him know how wrong he is.

Klaw explains how explorers have searched for Wakanda for centuries calling it El Dorado and looking in South America when they should have been in Africa. It’s a nice bit of retconning history making Wakanda into the mythical city of gold, or in this case, Vibranium.

While Klaw explains his El Dorado theory we see shots of T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) exiting a ship and standing in front of a tiered mountain face. On these tiers appear to be representatives of the tribes of Wakanda.

We also see that the ship that has dropped him off has Stark-level tech, confirming that Wakanda is not what we are told it is.

As Klaw lets us know that he’s the only one to make it out of Wakanda alive after seeing all this, we see how the Black Panther protects his land.

We get a slick sequence of a few mercenary types hunting something down, what they come across is the Black Panther who beats the hell out of them. Which may be a little overzealous for trespassing.

We also see that the Black Panther suit is bullet proof, due to it’s Vibranium weave. Vibranium can absorb all vibrations in it’s vicinity as well as kinetic energy directed at it. Apparently, according to Wikipedia, it also has a mutagenic property which is where many Wakandans get their sort-of superpowers from.

Klaw begins to laugh and tells T’Challa and Okoye (Danai Gurira) that he can see them behind a one way mirror.

Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) is briefly seen walking through a casino dressed to the nines. In doing research for this breakdown I stumbled across Nakia’s story and how she becomes the villain Malice. She is originally one of the Dora Milaje or “Adored Ones”, the wives in training for T’Challa. She instantly falls for him but the feeling isn’t entirely mutual. Because of reasons her infatuation turns to obsession. At one point she is captured and tortured, but it’s Killmonger that saves her. She then becomes Malice and a true villain to T’Challa. It’s yet to be seen if any of this will take place in this movie or if it’s being saved for later installments.

We also get a brief shot of the third female security officer Ayo (Florence Kasumba) who we briefly met in Civil War, busting heads in that same casino.

Another quick shot shows T’Challa walking back toward a group of onlookers. If I had to guess this is after him winning some sort of trial by combat to keep the throne of Wakanda.

Up next is a montage of Klaw involved in some sort of heist (presumably of Vibranium), T’Challa speaking at the UN, Killmonger with his crazy hair walking with W’Kabi (Get Out‘s Daniel Kaluuya), who is supposed to be an ally of T’Challa, and the briefest shot of Sterling K. Brown as N’Jobu with a giant disc in his mouth.

More of the montage shows Wakanda’s inner political turmoil following the death of King T’Chaka in Civil War. T’Challa is shown ascending to the throne but Killmonger is seen fighting him and his royal guard for it.

The penultimate sequence is Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright), who becomes the next Black Panther after T’Challa steps down in the comics, wielding some sick panther gauntlet full hand laser cannons. Which is not something I’d ever thought I’d write about.

The last scene of the trailer shows off some of the Black Panther’s acrobatic skills as he jumps off one flipping car and lands onto another. It’s a cool shot but I’m wary of the CGI used. Hopefully it’ll look a little better in the final product.

And that’s about it. There isn’t too much more to say except that I’m still pretty excited about this flick. The cast is excellent, as is director Ryan Coogler, so if nothing else there will be some killer performances and I think the action will step up to meet the challenge.